


From The Glass Cage

by LittleLinor



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Gen, Implied/Reference Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Stride Gate, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26931883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: In the wake of the Stride Gate, the world has gone back to normal, people picking up their lives where they left them, most of them blissfully ignorant of the fate they almost fell victims to, the harm almost done in their name. But to those who fought at the boundary between worlds, a scar remains in the landscape, as unavoidable as those in their hearts.
Relationships: Chouno Am/Yumizuki Luna, Ibuki Kouji/Shindou Chrono, Shindou Chrono & Yumizuki Luna
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	From The Glass Cage

**Author's Note:**

> Whew okay I wasn't sure what exact warning tags to use but this goes a lot into trauma and accountability and the weight of one's actions. It's subtle but you know. Stride Gate.  
> ANYWAY THIS FANDOM NEEDS MORE CHRONO + LUNA they barely got to interact and we were robbed.

Standing in the elevator shooting up the Tokyo Skytree, Chrono found himself caught between trying not to brush against anyone and wondering, again, how many people had been in that same elevator two weeks before, in the moment the world rippled and ground to a halt.  
It was a frequent train of thought. In the immediate aftermath of the gate, he had been too busy, too stunned to think too hard about everything that had happened. He had seen, for a moment, the light of another world, had had to say goodbye to one of his oldest friends, had found himself with a baby in his arms that he needed to take care of _somehow_ , and had been desperate for news of his friends.  
And then desperate, sitting on a hospital bench, for confirmation of their survival.  
But since then, it was hard not to wonder, any time he talked to someone, what they had been doing in that moment, what their own so-called perfect world had been like. The world in which they had never hurt, never struggled, never had to overcome—or fail. To think that his fight, and his choices, had touched so many people, each with their own story—it was mindblowing. Vertiginous, even more so than the city shooting away under his feet.  
One day, he would get used to it, surely. But for now, it made him feel both incredibly small and uncomfortably big.

When the door opened, he stayed still for a second, letting people walk past him. Right in front of him, all he could see was the sky, a slight band of blue across a quickly dispersing crowd of excited humans. And then, near the railing, he caught sight of a flash of pink hair, and Luna’s overlarge hat.  
He walked out before the doors could close. She was looking out at the city, oblivious to his arrival, a lone figure standing at the edge of the world, and Chrono thought that some things would probably cling to their skins for a long, long time.  
He walked forward. As he drew near, the sound of his footsteps seemed to alert her, and she turned, smiling, to look at him.  
“Considering all the trouble it put us through, I feel like we should be entitled to a lifetime discount to this place,” Chrono muttered as he came level with her.  
She laughed, light and cheerfully magical. Even now, there was something about Luna that always seemed to transcend reality, like the melded worlds of a Vanguard fight had ever only been a breath away for her. One dancing step was all that had separated her from the Pale Moon stage, even before she stepped onto one on Earth.  
“I’ll pay you back,” she said. “With everything that happened, I didn’t think they would, but… we still got paid for the last two months. I guess since there were contracts, it was too much work to _not_ do it?”  
He snorted.  
“What was their excuse again?”  
“We were working on a super secret Vanguard event project for the Association… well, when you think about it…”  
“… saying the truth in a totally misleading way… that’s Ryuzu all right,” Chrono sighed.  
She laughed again. Maybe it should have gotten on his nerves. But instead, her cheerfulness in the face of everything made him feel a little more confident in the future.  
“How is he?” She asked, a little more quietly. “Ryuzu, I mean.” She paused. “It still feels weird to call him that. But I can’t exactly use his old last name, now that he’s…”  
“… good, apparently.” He sighed. “I haven’t seen him in a few days. They insisted… I shouldn’t be the one to raise him.”  
She turned to face him fully, eyes wide in surprise.  
“You wanted to?”  
“I… yes and no? I…” He paused. “… I think I felt like I was supposed to. Like, they left him with me, you know? And after I said all that stuff about how he needed to not give up on the future… it felt like my responsibility to make good on that. I was worried about the logistics, but I still couldn’t… I still couldn’t help but feel guilty at the idea of letting someone else handle it. Especially cause… I don’t want more children to grow up without a family, you know?”  
She looked at him, eyes soft. Neither of them needed to elaborate. It was strange, in a way, how so many parentless children had come together in this fight, but then again, maybe it wasn’t. They made easy weapons.  
He turned back towards the inside of the observation deck, idly watching people walk about, groups of well-off teenagers taking selfies in front of the cityscape, parents with small children on their shoulders, foreign tourists frantically trying to match the view with their guidebook.  
“… but then Mikuru said… She said, ‘He already stole your childhood once, I won’t let him take what’s left of it.’ And I guess I can’t really argue with that,” he said, chuckling lightly.  
“She’s right,” Luna said softly. “You don’t owe him anything.”  
“I sure didn’t owe the _adult_ Ryuzu anything, but this kid? He hasn’t done anything. It’s complicated. But she’s right. And… well… it took me a while to really feel it, but… I’m relieved, honestly.”  
And that relief made him feel guilty at times too, but he had to start somewhere, maybe. He still remembered, vividly, Mikuru’s face when she told him that she did not want to lose him to this war, and when she told him that she wanted to lose who he had become even less. He remembered the jab of mixed relief and guilt when Shin had assured him that he would support her if he died and left her behind. Maybe he did owe himself to not carry the world upon his shoulders. Maybe not. But he absolutely owed it to Mikuru, who had had the courage to face the trauma of her childhood and risk experiencing loss once more. Mikuru, who had given up what was left of her own childhood for his sake.  
“… guess I wouldn’t want to make Mikuru essentially a grandmother at the ripe old age of twenty-eight,” he muttered, and Luna laughed, a little louder this time.  
“It would be interesting to explain to the public why the teenage star of the G Quest suddenly has a one year old child, too,” she pointed out cheerfully.  
“… I hadn’t even thought about that part,” he sighed. Idols really lived in another world, and he did not envy them one bit. “Well, anyway. You didn’t invite me here just to talk about Ryuzu, did you?”  
“I didn’t.”

She turned away from him, and faced the sky and the city underneath instead.  
“Can you believe I’d never been up here?”  
“… it wasn’t built that long ago.”  
The rest hung between them. Would this tower even have been built if Ryuzu Myoujin hadn’t pushed for its construction, influenced its design, funnelled funds into the project that likely made several companies greatly indebted to him? Maybe. Maybe it would have taken longer. Maybe a different tower would be in its place, a different design. Or maybe nothing about it would have changed at all, save for the equipment meant to relay Stride Force to Ryuzu’s gate satellite, and the facility deep underneath the ground.  
But there was no point in wondering. The reality they lived in, the reality Chrono had fought for, was this one. The Skytree was meant to symbolise the future. Without a doubt, Ryuzu had seen it as a weapon for the future he was trying to build. Now, instead, it stood as a reminder. Ever in the background, always towering over them when they went about their life in the city. The tower would not let them forget what they had lived through, but it was a symbol in its own right now, for those who had fought. A reminder of their choices.  
No matter what happened, the future ahead of them was one they’d make themselves.  
“… I’d never been either,” he said, taking a step to her side and turning to look through the glass along with her. “I think Shion and Tokoha have, though.”  
“I really wanted to see it… it’s a different view from here.” She laughed, but this time its lightness felt almost fragile. “You know… when I was the Peacemaker… I saw, for a while. I saw everything, like I was everywhere in that column of light at once. I could see over the city so well, and then into the sky… it got darker.”  
Chrono looked out, through the glass that separated them from the void. Outside, the harsh early afternoon sun bathed the city in light, so bright that the sky, the air itself seemed to shine. But with the sun so high over them, the observation deck itself was shadowed in comparison, and next to the ever-spreading city, the ceiling over their heads felt claustrophobic. Like a strip of darkness, gazing out at light and freedom.  
Was this how Dran had felt, locked up behind a window, a universe away from his home? Had he felt the same desperate craving for air that was already there, the same vertigo at the immensity just out of his reach?  
He found himself breathing hard, and took a step back, shaking his head lightly and reaching for his bag in search of some water—and remembered, too late, that he’d come empty-handed, his phone and keys and wallet held in his pockets.  
Luna’s mesmerised gaze broke away from the view, and she turned to look at him, eyes wide.  
“Chrono?”  
“I… sorry. I think the heat’s getting to me.”  
“Go sit down somewhere. I’ll get us some drinks.”  
“But—”  
She put her hands on her hips. He wondered, dizzily, if she’d stolen the gesture from Tokoha.  
“Tokoha and Kumi won’t forgive me if I let you faint after I invited you. Come on!”

The bench of sorts that they found was a little distance from the windows themselves, and with the people walking around, his sense of scale returned, and with it, reality, and his breath had mostly evened out by the time Luna came back with two bottles that had no doubt cost her twice or thrice their retail price.  
“I didn’t think you were a green tea kind of person,” she said, handing him his bottle before sitting down next to him and opening her own.  
“What kind of person did you think I was, then?” He took a sip of the cold tea, and found his senses coming back to him, like the wave of wakefulness and clarity brought by a cup of coffee. “You’re not even the first person who says that but no one can actually tell me what they think I _would_ drink.”  
“Hmmmm…” She brought a finger to her lips. “Energy drinks maybe? But not now, I know you’re more on the healthier side.”  
“I’ve seen the effects of those enough at Dragon Empire.”  
He took another sip, then a real gulp. His body slowly relaxed, and he slumped slightly, releasing a long sigh as tension fled him.  
She bent forward and looked back up at him.  
“Feeling better?”  
“Yeah. Sorry. Probably not what you had in mind, huh?”  
“I just wanted to talk to you, really. I didn’t have any specific plan in mind.” She grinned. “I mean, this isn’t a date.”  
He rolled his eyes.  
“Sorry I’m not Am.”  
She laughed.  
“Am doesn’t like high places much. Don’t tell her I told you.”  
“I won’t,” he told her with a smile.  
She straightened, took a surprisingly full gulp of her soda, and leaned back, looking at the ceiling.  
“You wanna go back to the window?” Chrono asked her.  
She shook her head.  
“It’s okay. I’ve seen enough.” She paused, then let her head fall further back, staring into space itself as if the metal ceiling did not exist for her. “… the city’s beautiful, huh? And so big… so many people…”  
“… yeah.”  
So many people, touched by his choices, by hers. Had she touched their minds as they fell asleep, the way others touched his when he gathered all their hopes and will to fight? He didn’t dare ask.  
“What would you have done?” She asked abruptly, evenly. “How far would _you_ have gone, for someone you love?”  
A shiver ran through him, and for a moment, he almost regretted the cold drink in his stomach. It made him feel queasy, chilled with the memory of weight in his arms, of cold fingers against his own.  
He wanted away from this place. He wanted sunlight. He wanted the crisp softness of hospital bedsheets under his fingers, and the reassuring rhythm of steadily healthier sleeping breaths.  
He wanted safety.  
Funny, wasn’t it, how it had never been his own danger that ripped that feeling from him.  
“… I don’t know,” he whispered.  
Luna stayed silent. His eyes stayed on the ground, hers on the ceiling.  
“… Ryuzu tried that angle,” he said, after a while. “Tried to dangle him in front of me like a prize.” He didn’t elaborate, but didn’t try to hide hints of the truth either. If she heard the truth of his feelings between his words, he trusted she would keep it to herself. “I guess it’s different though… doing it for someone’s sake… and doing it because you want them.” He snorted. “Dunno if _he_ could tell the difference though. I’ve got doubts honestly.”  
He felt her nod, and turn slightly towards him, and closed his eyes for a moment.  
“But you know… to answer your question…” He lifted his head, actually looking her in the eye again. “… for a moment, I was ready to kill. I dunno if it’s better or worse.”  
Would his guilt have been greater, ending a life with his own hands, while she let herself be used to take countless freedoms? He didn’t know how to measure them, and didn’t want to.  
Luna put down her bottle.  
“But you didn’t.”  
He breathed in. Released that breath as a sigh, slowly.  
“No. No, I didn’t. It wasn’t worth it. It’s never worth it, I think.” He chuckled, derisive. “I’m not made for that kind of hate, I think. It tires me out.”  
“… me either. None of it was out of hate. Is _that_ better or worse?”  
He thought about it for a second.  
“Does it really matter?”  
She stared at him.  
“… I guess not.” A bittersweet smile graced her face. “You know… I’d have understood. If you hated me.”  
“… can’t really do that when I almost fell for his shit myself, can I?”  
“Still…”  
“He’s awake. Shion’s awake. Everyone will get better, with time. I don’t want to think about the past anymore. There’s nothing there for me.” He breathed deep again, and found in himself the strength to smile. “So how about we start by actually talking to each other _not_ about almost destroying the world?”  
She stared at him in silence, for a few seconds, and then burst into laughter.  
“I—okay. Yes. What shall we do, then?”  
He smiled. It was tired, but real, and maybe, just maybe, the start of something new.  
“I dunno. Up to you.”  
“How about we find someplace nice to eat? To pay you back for that entrance ticket?”  
“Lead the way.”

“Last time I was with Tokoha and Kumi,” she said as they walked into the elevator heading back to the ground, “I found this place that does the most _amazing_ cream puffs and waffles.”  
“… I don’t really like sweets,” Chrono admitted, trying not to grumble.  
“What? Really?!”  
“Why is everyone always so surprised?!”

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, if you need a pick-me-up rn (I think we all do), please consider: Kouji Ibuki had to pay at least 2k to go dramatically stare at the city in episode three.  
> (And didn't even realise what was under his feet)  
> This fact keeps me up at night okay


End file.
